Pounding the pavements of Crewe, leaflets in hand and smile on face, Maggie Bray looks like your average politician canvassing for votes in a local election. But Bray is far from typical. When the elections take place tomorrow she will be one of three women standing in different parts of the country for a brand new political party: Mums' Army.

Bray, a recently retired schoolteacher who has never campaigned before, let alone stood as a candidate, does not expect to win. The ward in which she is standing is firm Labour. But what she intends to do, she says, is make some noise on the issues that matter to her - primarily, antisocial behaviour. "I hope to get a protest vote," she says. "I'm just fed up with people being bullied. It's old people, even mentally ill people, all living in fear. It is just unacceptable."

Mums' Army is the brainchild of John Dale, editor of the UK's best-selling women's weekly magazine, Take a Break. The magazine sells around 1.2m copies a week and has a readership of approximately 4 million, mainly working-class women living in old industrial towns and cities. Dale, who has spent his 15-year tenure on the magazine running serious campaigns on issues such as drugs alongside "real life" stories of triumph over adversity and tittle-tattle about love rats, says that while setting up a political party is an unusual move for a magazine, it should not be sniffed at.

Mums' Army, he insists, has a serious message: it is campaigning for action to tackle antisocial behaviour. It has other concerns, but what the people who have signed up to it really appear to be about is sticking it to the government on tackling "yob-culture". Their attitude is summed up by a cartoon impression on the magazine's website, depicting a startled looking Tony Blair having a broom handle shoved up his backside by an angry woman.

The idea for a political party evolved from one of the magazine's campaigns. Dale explains: "We ran a campaign for three years, Reclaim the Streets, about antisocial behaviour. We realised that there was a tremendous anger out there [about the issue] and that lots of people have just about given up hope."

In the six months since it was founded, Dale has had to confront accusations that Mums' Army is nothing more than a cynical ploy to raise circulation at a time when Take A Break is seeing its position as market leader threatened by the arrival of new competitors. Mums' Army has certainly been a PR dream, attracting considerable media coverage, including television appearances on programmes such as Richard and Judy. But Dale is philosophical. "You have to ask what altruism really means," he says. "Even the Pope gets paid."

By focusing on a single issue, Mums' Army has something in common with a long line of maverick British politicians, such as the former BBC journalist Martin Bell, and retired NHS doctor Richard Taylor, who stood, and was elected, as MP in Kidderminster as a protest against the closure of a local hospital. But Mums' Army is a different beast. When Take A Break asked its readers to respond to a survey on antisocial behaviour, 10,000 replied. And some 7,000 readers volunteered to get involved with Mums' Army, according to Dale. It may have only three candidates in tomorrow's elections, but, according to activists, almost 500 have said they will stand in the future.

Mums' Army is a registered political party, but it is not one in the conventional sense. It is more a loose, grassroots coalition, a disparate group of individuals responding to a specific frustration, rather than being a cogent political movement. It has no leader (Dale describes himself as a "facilitator"). It has no constitution, no manifesto (candidates are free to campaign on whatever they wish). And it has no real funds to speak of. It is really more of a hybrid - half pressure group, half political party.

The members stay in touch via the phone and the internet, using a website to share ideas and campaigning tips. Some areas, such as Blackpool, have a core committee of members who meet to work out strategies for getting publicity. In other areas, it may be just one or two women.

At the heart of this peculiar organisation, however, is the shared perception that, whatever the mainstream political parties say, and whatever the government promises to do about it, antisocial behaviour is out of control. Talking to candidates and activists, it is apparent - something backed up further by the Take A Break readers' survey - that these women (and men - 20% of the magazine's readers are men and some are actively involved with Mums' Army) believe that loutish behaviour is endemic across the country.

Many of the candidates and activists appear to have responded to Take A Break's idea because of personal experiences, and no amount of official statistics demonstrating that the problem is not as widespread as they fear can convince them otherwise. Beverly Warren, a feisty activist based in Blackpool, who, despite no previous experience, has become a dogged campaigner, is typical when she says she simply does not believe the government's claim that most antisocial behaviour is committed by a small minority of people. Neither does she accept suggestions that it is relatively rare.

Warren says she was galvanised into action after her grandchild was threatened in the street. Seeing what was happening, Warren reprimanded the children responsible, only to be slapped in the face by a 10-year-old girl. "Tony Blair has lost it completely if he thinks this is not a huge problem," Warren says, her eyes welling up with tears. "Since I put myself forward - I'll be standing as a candidate next year - I've been on the phone constantly, listening to people's problems. I've cried when I've listened to women, and men, tell me that they are afraid to leave their own homes."

Activists are vague about how exactly they would deal with the problem if they got the chance. They don't seem to have any concrete solutions, although concepts such as more bobbies on the beat and "zero tolerance" crop up in conversation. So what about Asbos and Tony Blair's Respect agenda? Don't they give some confidence that the problem is being tackled? "No - Asbos don't work," Warren says. "The young people treat them like a badge of honour. And as for Respect? Well, that's just rhetoric. Mums' Army appeals to people because they are fed up. If the politicians won't deal with it, then people will do it themselves."

But why join a new political party? "I think people have had enough," Warren says. "And I think, in particular, that when women decide to do something for their communities, they do it with real passion."

But it isn't only women. There is no information available on the profile of people signing up, but Mums' Army has undoubtedly hit a nerve with some men. Kevin Banks, a former magistrate, one-time SDP local council candidate and now a pub landlord in Bolton, says he heard the call loud and clear. He takes time out from having lunch in McDonald's with his two daughters to explain what spurred him to become involved. "I'm bloody-minded," he says. "I run a pub and we're always getting troublemakers in. There have been confrontations, and some regulars have been beaten up outside." Like the others, Banks says he is exasperated by antisocial behaviour. "A lot of it is low level, but more needs to be done."

So what will the novice politicians of Mums' Army do if they are elected? And how would they cope with the rough and tumble of local politics? "If you can face a classroom of 30 unruly teenagers every day of the week, you can face a local council," Bray says.

Linda Martin, a Mums' Army candidate in Shoeburyness, Essex, says every one of her four children, including a daughter with Down's syndrome, has been a victim of street violence. "This is the end of the line for me," she says. "I am thinking about my grandchildren's future. The [other] parties' policies haven't worked, and it's about time people were listened to."

But for all its initial gusto, isn't a loose alliance such as Mums' Army - especially one with such a narrow focus - doomed to fade away as the initial momentum subsides? Warren insists not. She believes the party is sustainable. "This is no flash in the pan thing," she says. "More people are coming forward all the time. Personally, I'd like to get to Westminster one day."

Dale accepts that Mums' Army may well disappear, and that there is no way of knowing if it will be around in a few months, never mind be a force to be reckoned with in years to come. What he does know, he says, is that almost 2.5 million of Take A Break's readers don't vote: "That's a large chunk of the electorate who are disillusioned."

On the streets of Crewe, as happens with electioneering, people see Bray's bright pink rosette and avert their gaze. But when they do stop and talk there appears to be a real appetite for what she has to say. At the local hairdressers, the women are discussing Mums' Army with enthusiasm. "I agree with everything they are saying," says one older woman having her rollers taken out. "They seem to stand for something."

Whether such views will translate into votes and a long-term future for Mums' Army is another matter.